Article from: The Australian
Title: Without Fear or Favour
Author: Miriam Cosic
Date: August 23, 3008
Link: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24225531-28737,00.html
This article dicusses a decline in quality journalism and uses the examples of Google News and Yahoo News to illustrate this point. These two sites do not hire reporters, editors or journalists to investigate news and present it to the public. Instead, these websites use specially designed software to scan for the most popular news stories and uploads them to their websites. These popular news stories are not checked for their credability and are often written or influenced by PR people or government agencies to benefit or promote particular members of society.
I find this idea quite disturbing as, throughout my studies, I have learnt that the media is supposed to be a watchdog for what is happening in society, not an advertising or propoganda medium. I feel that there is a place for people to share their views an opinions but the news is not this place, especially not when there is no distinction between what is supposed to be 'news' and what is 'opinion'.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Week Seven: ABC Media Report
Article from: ABC Media Report
Title: 'On the record' with Deborah Welch
Presenter: Antony Funnell
Date: September 11, 2008
Link: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2358056.htm#transcript
In this week's segment Antony Funnell speaks to the station manager at Radio Adelaide (and President of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia), Deborah Welch, about reasons why she feels community broadcasting deserves more funding. She mentions that community broadcasting is very diverse and offers something for everyone. She also mentions the involvement of new media, such as websites, involved in community broadcasting and also discusses user-generated content vs community broadcasting.
Deborah feels that community broadcasting can create a relationship between what is happening within a community to the people within that community. She feels that user-generated content by individuals does not have that same impact and I happen to agree. I am originally from a small country town in South Australia and the local paper and radio stations were, and still are, a vital source of information within that community, as well as providing the members of that community with a sense of belonging and camarderie. I also understand Deborah's desire to recieve more funding to expand community broadcasting's possibilities into realms such as the internet. Although I no longer live in rural South Australia and have very little access to the physical pages of that local newspaper, I am very glad to be able to access it online and hold onto my connections with that community.
I find it interesting to note also that new media is becoming an important part of every media organisation and is in high demand from the public. Deborah mentions that people often ring the radio station in search of the written transcript and wonder if it is possible to find these things online. She then explains the fact that changing the genre or type of media from its original form, such as changing a radio program into a transcript, requires effort and funding and is not as easy as simply waving a wand and having it appear.
This idea brings me to an assignment I am currently undertaking. I am required to change an audio excerpt (see link below) about wave energy into three other genres. This requires special considerations of audience, context and purpose which I think relates to Deborah Welch's point. Each genre has a set of similarities and rules and perfecting a publication so that it can be easily understood by an audience requires time and effort. I hope to be able to achieve this over the next few weeks and maybe one day I'll be able to help out Deborah Welch and the rest of the community broadcasting associations.
Wave Energy audio except: http://www.abc.net.au/rural/telegraph/content/2006/s2335194.htm
Title: 'On the record' with Deborah Welch
Presenter: Antony Funnell
Date: September 11, 2008
Link: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2358056.htm#transcript
In this week's segment Antony Funnell speaks to the station manager at Radio Adelaide (and President of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia), Deborah Welch, about reasons why she feels community broadcasting deserves more funding. She mentions that community broadcasting is very diverse and offers something for everyone. She also mentions the involvement of new media, such as websites, involved in community broadcasting and also discusses user-generated content vs community broadcasting.
Deborah feels that community broadcasting can create a relationship between what is happening within a community to the people within that community. She feels that user-generated content by individuals does not have that same impact and I happen to agree. I am originally from a small country town in South Australia and the local paper and radio stations were, and still are, a vital source of information within that community, as well as providing the members of that community with a sense of belonging and camarderie. I also understand Deborah's desire to recieve more funding to expand community broadcasting's possibilities into realms such as the internet. Although I no longer live in rural South Australia and have very little access to the physical pages of that local newspaper, I am very glad to be able to access it online and hold onto my connections with that community.
I find it interesting to note also that new media is becoming an important part of every media organisation and is in high demand from the public. Deborah mentions that people often ring the radio station in search of the written transcript and wonder if it is possible to find these things online. She then explains the fact that changing the genre or type of media from its original form, such as changing a radio program into a transcript, requires effort and funding and is not as easy as simply waving a wand and having it appear.
This idea brings me to an assignment I am currently undertaking. I am required to change an audio excerpt (see link below) about wave energy into three other genres. This requires special considerations of audience, context and purpose which I think relates to Deborah Welch's point. Each genre has a set of similarities and rules and perfecting a publication so that it can be easily understood by an audience requires time and effort. I hope to be able to achieve this over the next few weeks and maybe one day I'll be able to help out Deborah Welch and the rest of the community broadcasting associations.
Wave Energy audio except: http://www.abc.net.au/rural/telegraph/content/2006/s2335194.htm
Monday, September 1, 2008
Week Six: ABC Media Report
Article From: ABC Media Report
Title: Scorched
Presenter: Anthony Funnell
Date: August 28, 2008
Link: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2349346.htm
In this radio segment, Anthony Funnell speaks to Marcus Gillezeau, the screen producer of a new telemovie that aired on Channel Nine on Sunday night. However its not your average telemovie. It's a TV/online hybrid.
The telemovie is linked to a series of websites which have been running mini webisodes which both link into the telemovie and function as a story on their own. This whole experiment raises the issue which we are faced with more and more these days, the idea of producing texts and publications suitable for more than one medium. This offers the audience a range of viewing options and expands the market. It also puts pressure on companies to make publications in a number of formats to reach market demand.
As Marcus Gillezeau points out in this interview, there is also the opportunity for advertising companies to really reach large audiences through these different mediums. Instead of investing all their advertising 'eggs' in one basket, advertisers can produce advertising that will be seen and consumed by specific target audiences on the internet (that is those who go to a particular website for a particular reason) and the wider audience through televsion. There is also the possibility to audiences through print and radio, all through the same text which is slightly modified for each medium. It seems the possibilities are endless.
I think this new TV/online hybrid idea is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how we can link different mediums together through different publications. I think we've been presented with an opportunity to involve all types of media into a web of interactive and informative texts. As Anthony Funnell says, it might be complicated but that's the fun of it. It's a new, fresh way of presenting a text to the audience and I personally can't wait to see what's next!
Title: Scorched
Presenter: Anthony Funnell
Date: August 28, 2008
Link: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2349346.htm
In this radio segment, Anthony Funnell speaks to Marcus Gillezeau, the screen producer of a new telemovie that aired on Channel Nine on Sunday night. However its not your average telemovie. It's a TV/online hybrid.
The telemovie is linked to a series of websites which have been running mini webisodes which both link into the telemovie and function as a story on their own. This whole experiment raises the issue which we are faced with more and more these days, the idea of producing texts and publications suitable for more than one medium. This offers the audience a range of viewing options and expands the market. It also puts pressure on companies to make publications in a number of formats to reach market demand.
As Marcus Gillezeau points out in this interview, there is also the opportunity for advertising companies to really reach large audiences through these different mediums. Instead of investing all their advertising 'eggs' in one basket, advertisers can produce advertising that will be seen and consumed by specific target audiences on the internet (that is those who go to a particular website for a particular reason) and the wider audience through televsion. There is also the possibility to audiences through print and radio, all through the same text which is slightly modified for each medium. It seems the possibilities are endless.
I think this new TV/online hybrid idea is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how we can link different mediums together through different publications. I think we've been presented with an opportunity to involve all types of media into a web of interactive and informative texts. As Anthony Funnell says, it might be complicated but that's the fun of it. It's a new, fresh way of presenting a text to the audience and I personally can't wait to see what's next!
Applying the Principles of Reading Gravity
As I mentioned in my last post, I presented a presentation on Reading Gravity a few weeks ago. Since this time I have been applying these principles to my everyday work. I have noticed publications which do not follow these principles and this has only intensified my understanding of the concept. I have realised how important this principle is and am now applying it to other aspects of my study. For example, I have an assignment to complete in which I need to design a brochure. Using the concept and skills I learnt through my study of reading gravity I am able to design a brochure which is both visually appealing and highly effective. I feel it is very important to be aware of this principle and other design principles to ensure the publication designed will reach the target audience and be as effective in conveying meaning as possible.
Over the coming weeks I will refer more to this application of reading gravity and try to find some examples of both articles which follow reading gravity and those which do not.
Over the coming weeks I will refer more to this application of reading gravity and try to find some examples of both articles which follow reading gravity and those which do not.
Reading Review Presentations
Over the last few weeks, my collegues and I have been presenting a series of reading review presentations to our class. We were each allocated a reading which dicusses a deisgn or publication issue. We then summarised it and presented a five minute presentation. The formal reference for my reading is:
Wheildon, C 1990, 'Communicating or just making pretty shapes', 3rd end, Newspaper Bureau of Australia Ltd, North Sydney, excerpts pp. 11-15
This reading discusses a concept called redaing gravity in relation to the Gutenberg diagram. Here are my notes on this presentation.
The main concepts covered in this summary include Edmund Arnold’s Gutenberg Diagram which involves the concept of reading gravity and the importance of good design to communicate effectively. I will also discuss these questions:
· Do all languages follow the same reading gravity?
· Do we read images and visuals differently to written words?
· How do we read pictures and words on a computer screen, such as internet WebPages?
So, what is Edmund Arnold’s Gutenberg Diagram? It describes the natural reading pattern that we follow when reading text. Firstly our eyes enter the page at the upper left corner, known as the Primary Optical Area. Then, after finishing the first line of text, our eyes naturally fall to the beginning of the next line, the point directly under the beginning of the first line. This is called the axis of orientation. The eye then continues to scan the page, moving left to right until it reaches the bottom left hand corner. In some texts, such as magazine articles, there is a signal in the form of a logo, symbol or bolded piece of writing which lets the reader know they have completed the text. This is known as the terminal anchor. The reading also suggests that in some texts the author will use illustrations or images to direct the reader’s attention to the corners of the page.
This reading process, which the Gutenberg diagram explains, is called reading gravity and is a very important element to understand when designing texts.
So now that you understand what reading gravity is based on the Gutenberg diagram it is time to find out why it is an important principle when designing texts. This reading covers a series of tests undertaken to find out whether reading gravity is important. Wheildon presented groups of people with 2 texts; one which followed the principles of reading gravity outlined in the Gutenberg diagram and one which did not. He found that the readers of Figure 6 had much higher comprehension rates than those of Figure 7. When reading Figure 6, our eyes enter the page at the Primary Optical Area, the top left corner. We then read the first line and our eyes drop to the second line to the Axis of Orientation. Our eyes scan each line of each column from left to right, each time returning to the same axis of orientation, and finally we reach the terminal anchor which tells us the text is finished. In Figure 7 however, our eyes enter the page at the Primary Optical Area before we realise this is not the beginning of the text. We then have to search for the beginning, the heading, and after having read it, our eyes fall naturally to the point directly below to where we would expect the axis of orientation to be. However this point is not the beginning of the main body of text so once again we have to search for the start of the article. The author has tried to make this search easier by using a drop cap, a larger letter at the beginning of the paragraph which catches our attention. Having found this we can begin to read the article.
As you can probably tell just from my explanation, reading Figure 7 seems much more complicated and confusing than the relatively easy reading layout of Figure 6. And this is just what Wheildon found in his tests. Readers of Figure 7 not only had much lower comprehension levels and some also found the task exhausting and confusing. As Wheildon says...
“[when] reading rhythm has been destroyed, as the research programme shows, considerable damage may have been done to the reader’s comprehension of the article...”
Wheildon, 1990, p. 11
Wheildon also conducted another test with very similar results, reaching the conclusion that layouts which follow the natural reading rhythm of reading gravity are best. At the end of the reading, he also highlights other examples of ineffective layouts which you can have a look at on pages 14 and 15 of the reading.
Reading gravity is obviously an important aspect to keep in mind when considering the layout of a text in English, but is it the same in every language? I propose that languages such as Arabic or Hebrew, where words are written and read from right to left would not follow the exact same reading gravity. I did search for information to support this but it seems that very little research, at least research that was available to me, has not been conducted on the subject.
The next question I wanted to raise was, do we read images and visuals differently to written words? According to the author of reading 3, Walsh, and to Kress and van Leeuwen, we do not follow the same principle of reading gravity. The image is there at once and fills the page, so our eyes are attracted not so much to certain points on the page but more to what is known as the ‘visual grammar’ of the image, aspects such as colour, framing, line, angle and perspective.
Due to the internet and computers becoming a huge part of our daily lives in the last few years, I thought I’d also comment on how we read words and images on a computer screen. There is a slightly different reading path than texts on paper and it is known, as our tutor has told us, as the F Pattern. Firstly our eyes start at the top left corner and read down the left bar. We then read from left to right similarly to when we read texts on paper. As you can see from the example I have here which is the course homepage for this subject.
Wheildon, C 1990, 'Communicating or just making pretty shapes', 3rd end, Newspaper Bureau of Australia Ltd, North Sydney, excerpts pp. 11-15
This reading discusses a concept called redaing gravity in relation to the Gutenberg diagram. Here are my notes on this presentation.
The main concepts covered in this summary include Edmund Arnold’s Gutenberg Diagram which involves the concept of reading gravity and the importance of good design to communicate effectively. I will also discuss these questions:
· Do all languages follow the same reading gravity?
· Do we read images and visuals differently to written words?
· How do we read pictures and words on a computer screen, such as internet WebPages?
So, what is Edmund Arnold’s Gutenberg Diagram? It describes the natural reading pattern that we follow when reading text. Firstly our eyes enter the page at the upper left corner, known as the Primary Optical Area. Then, after finishing the first line of text, our eyes naturally fall to the beginning of the next line, the point directly under the beginning of the first line. This is called the axis of orientation. The eye then continues to scan the page, moving left to right until it reaches the bottom left hand corner. In some texts, such as magazine articles, there is a signal in the form of a logo, symbol or bolded piece of writing which lets the reader know they have completed the text. This is known as the terminal anchor. The reading also suggests that in some texts the author will use illustrations or images to direct the reader’s attention to the corners of the page.
This reading process, which the Gutenberg diagram explains, is called reading gravity and is a very important element to understand when designing texts.
So now that you understand what reading gravity is based on the Gutenberg diagram it is time to find out why it is an important principle when designing texts. This reading covers a series of tests undertaken to find out whether reading gravity is important. Wheildon presented groups of people with 2 texts; one which followed the principles of reading gravity outlined in the Gutenberg diagram and one which did not. He found that the readers of Figure 6 had much higher comprehension rates than those of Figure 7. When reading Figure 6, our eyes enter the page at the Primary Optical Area, the top left corner. We then read the first line and our eyes drop to the second line to the Axis of Orientation. Our eyes scan each line of each column from left to right, each time returning to the same axis of orientation, and finally we reach the terminal anchor which tells us the text is finished. In Figure 7 however, our eyes enter the page at the Primary Optical Area before we realise this is not the beginning of the text. We then have to search for the beginning, the heading, and after having read it, our eyes fall naturally to the point directly below to where we would expect the axis of orientation to be. However this point is not the beginning of the main body of text so once again we have to search for the start of the article. The author has tried to make this search easier by using a drop cap, a larger letter at the beginning of the paragraph which catches our attention. Having found this we can begin to read the article.
As you can probably tell just from my explanation, reading Figure 7 seems much more complicated and confusing than the relatively easy reading layout of Figure 6. And this is just what Wheildon found in his tests. Readers of Figure 7 not only had much lower comprehension levels and some also found the task exhausting and confusing. As Wheildon says...
“[when] reading rhythm has been destroyed, as the research programme shows, considerable damage may have been done to the reader’s comprehension of the article...”
Wheildon, 1990, p. 11
“...many of the readers who made the journey against reading gravity found the task exhausting in some way, and some read only two or three paragraphs before losing interest.”
Wheildon, 1990, p.14
Wheildon, 1990, p.14
Wheildon also conducted another test with very similar results, reaching the conclusion that layouts which follow the natural reading rhythm of reading gravity are best. At the end of the reading, he also highlights other examples of ineffective layouts which you can have a look at on pages 14 and 15 of the reading.
Reading gravity is obviously an important aspect to keep in mind when considering the layout of a text in English, but is it the same in every language? I propose that languages such as Arabic or Hebrew, where words are written and read from right to left would not follow the exact same reading gravity. I did search for information to support this but it seems that very little research, at least research that was available to me, has not been conducted on the subject.
The next question I wanted to raise was, do we read images and visuals differently to written words? According to the author of reading 3, Walsh, and to Kress and van Leeuwen, we do not follow the same principle of reading gravity. The image is there at once and fills the page, so our eyes are attracted not so much to certain points on the page but more to what is known as the ‘visual grammar’ of the image, aspects such as colour, framing, line, angle and perspective.
Due to the internet and computers becoming a huge part of our daily lives in the last few years, I thought I’d also comment on how we read words and images on a computer screen. There is a slightly different reading path than texts on paper and it is known, as our tutor has told us, as the F Pattern. Firstly our eyes start at the top left corner and read down the left bar. We then read from left to right similarly to when we read texts on paper. As you can see from the example I have here which is the course homepage for this subject.
So in conclusion, I think the most important design principle to take from this reading is to design a text in the most appropriate and effective way for the audience to gain the most from it. And that means being aware of concepts such as reading gravity. As Wheildon says “Good design is a balance between function and form, and the greater of these is function”. This means that a design must be visually appealing but most importantly, it must effectively convey meaning.
“The conclusion to be drawn must be that designs which conform to natural reading physiology are largely acceptable to readers; those that don’t conform run the risk of going largely unread.”
Wheildon, 1990, p. 14
Wheildon, 1990, p. 14
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I think the presentation was a success and I thoroughly enjoyed researching this topic. If you's like to take a look at some of the other presentations presented, here are the URL's for their blogs.
http://madamemedia.blogspot.com/ for a look at the complex ideas surrounding medical narratives
http://themotherofallmedia.blogspot.com/ for information on deisgning for print, with particular reference to brochure design
http://pretzeljetaime.blogspot.com/ for information on designing documents for internet usage
http://randomclicks-horatio.blogspot.com/ gives you an insight into how prose and graphics interact along with the five ways in which they can be combined
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